Carpenter Cory Spoon brings wood to life

Faith Bemiss | DemocratAfter cutting a piece of wood in his workshop, Cory Spoon, owner of Cory's Wood Creations near Green Ridge, places it in the bottom of his coffee/wine rack. He said the rack is one of his best sellers.

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Faith Bemiss | DemocratAfter cutting a piece of wood in his workshop, Cory Spoon, owner of Cory's Wood Creations near Green Ridge, places it in the bottom of his coffee/wine rack. He said the rack is one of his best sellers.

Photo

Over the last two years Cory Spoon, owner of Cory’s Wood Creations, has created 1,000 items from refurbished tables and chairs to re-purposed desks made from pallets, to more colorful novel items such as ice chests with automobile wheels — almost all of this work has sold.

The Spoon family moved to the area nearly a year ago from San Antonio, where Cory’s wife Melissa, a Tech. Sgt. and tech school instructor, was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base. She is currently stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in security services. They and their daughters Lillie, 5, and Laina, 2, live near Green Ridge.

Spoon’s journey to creating custom wood products came about as a child working with his father John Linderman, a carpenter in Colorado Springs, Colo. But his career in woodworking began two years ago when he built a three-level deck 130-feet long and 60-feet wide with a tree house in the back. He built the deck alone, which took around two months to complete.

“That’s when I actually stopped working for a company, and went out on my own, was while we were in Texas,” he said.

After building his first deck, he began making benches and chairs and that progressed into making other furniture pieces.

“I bought a book that showed me how to do a bench once … and then it grew in sets, then tables, coffee tables and end tables, and it just grew. I love it a lot more than any other job I’ve done. Because it’s different, it not something that’s repetitious.”

“His business has been going for about two years,” Melissa added. “One year down there and one year here, he’s done real good. He’s pretty handy. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep doing it when we got up here, it’s hard when you come to a new place. But he got a deck right off the bat and with the wintertime he started doing small stuff. And now he has a few jobs and a few decks lined up for the summer.”

Inside the couple’s home are several furniture pieces Spoon has created, such as a piece that was re-puposed from a headboard and a desk into a bench with a drawer, a wood-stained and bright yellow kitchen desk made from pallets, and a fine dining table refinished with black lacquer and gray paint.

“It used to be a dark brown table,” he said. “If it’s an older one we’ll just repaint it and do it or we’ll actually transform it into something different.”

“Our daughters think he can make anything,” Melissa added.

She said they have an old upright piano they plan to pick up. Spoon will then take the action out of the piano and make it into a desk or a wine rack. Many of his pieces are bright and colorful, teal being the most popular color so far with customers. The color aspect comes from Melissa.

“I do a lot of the color ideas, usually,” she said. “The schemes, the yellow was his idea, I’m not so hot about the yellow, but we work on it a lot together.”

To find pieces that work together and that he can reassemble, Spoon said he looks online and has had much success.

“Most of the ideas we get is from Pinterest,” he said. “And we try to do them a little bit different than what the picture says, so it’s not all basically the same.”

“He gets bored very easily so he likes to do different stuff,” added Melissa, smiling.

While in San Antonio the couple had a website but since moving to the area, they have found more success with selling wood creations on Facebook and by word of mouth.

One of Spoon’s biggest sellers has been a coffee/wine rack that sells for $25, and he has sold 15 so far. He makes the racks from pallets and adds a chalk board so one can write notes.

Although his ice chests with automobile wheels are quite unique. He obtains the wheels from mom and pop shops.

“We got a set of four the other day from Facebook,” he said.

Rough-cut chests sell for approximately $50, while a finished custom job with hand painted logos runs from $80 to $120.

Spoon also makes picnic tables, bear benches and wooden wagons for children plus many more items. He hopes to be at the Sedalia Area Farmers Market this year and has plans to attend the Show-Me Craters show Nov. 8-9 this fall.

For more information on his wood creations and for pricing contact Spoon at 719-306-2259.

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